Back in stock! This is the more recent Tank Crimes reissue of Annihilation Time's second album, this version packaged in a gatefold jacket with an additional 7" of the band's ripping Cosmic Unconciousness EP. Here's my original writeup on the Six Weeks edition:
Loads of newer bands have been juicing up their hardcore thrash with some straight up rock lately, but few do it as well as the mighty Annihilation Time, whose latest album III on Tee Pee completely kicked my ass earlier this year. These Cali rippers combine old-school hardcore and classic 70's hard rock/proto-metal heroics better than anyone, and sound like some mutant cross between the burly hardcore punk of Black Flag and B'last! and the infectious bloozy riffage of Rainbow and Deep Purple; sounds like a weird combo, and it is, but do these guys tear it up! I'm still playing III on a regular basis here at C-Blast HQ, and I've been slowly tracking down their earlier releases that came out on the thrashcore labels Dead Alive and Six Weeks. Some of this stuff is out of print or otherwise hard to locate, but I did just find the vinyl version of their second album, appropriately titled II, from 2005. It's just as raging and rocking and furious as the newer stuff; the hybrid of Black Flag/Deep Purple is in full form here, short manic songs that mash together skronky Greg Ginn style riffs and fast pounding thrash with yelping, reverb-soaked vocals, fuzzed out leads and fist-pumping rawk, with titles like "Too High To Die", "Fastforward To The Gore", "Yuppie Killer", and "Imaginary Mirror", and there's a killer cover of "Teenage Rebel" from British proto-punks Pink Fairies that closes out the first side. Nice! The guitar sound and production on this record has a killer vintage sound, as if II really was recorded and released back in the 70's, a lost hardcore anachronism that was only recently unearthed and discovered by modern hardcore fans. It's not, of course, but this record fucking smokes like few other hardcore platters of this era, that's for sure. And the album art is terrific: the front cover of the LP is a garish, hand-painted psychedelic collage that has the zomboid heads of the band members rising in a geyser from a gushing toilet while demonic skater punks hold the Annihilation Time logo aloft, tossing multi-colored pills over a grotesque scene that includes an undead Lemmy Kilmister and Phil Lynott, a skeletonized creep wearing a Blue Oyster Cult t-shirt with guitar cables pounded into his ear cavities, mushrooms, beer cans, dope-smoking sewer rats, and demonically possessed water bongs. That freakish vision just kind of sums it all up.
And here's my writeup of the Cosmic Unconciousness EP: Here's the latest repress of this rippin' 2006 Ep from Cali stoner punks Annihilation Time, featuring three songs of their Flag-esque mix of 70s rock/metal riffage and ferocious hardcore punk. Released prior to their final album III - Tales Of The Ancient Age, this Ep has some of my favorite tuneage from this band, and I don't think I'm alone as this has been repressed over and over again to satiate the band's still growing legion of fans. The a-side track "Reality?" is one Annihilation Time's most majestic thrashers, opening with some sweet metallic power that has a whiff of Judas Priest around it, then hurtling into the awesome, jagged hardcore at the meat of the song. Their adoration of B'last and Black Flag is still devout, the guitarist peeling off loads of wicked Greg Ginn-esque skronk-leads as the band twists itself around some off-kilter time changes. Then it all drops into a big Sabbath riff in the middle, which crawls over the song for awhile before finally tearing back into the speed assault. Pure power.
The b-side tracks are shorter blasts of thrash, "Feel It" raging at top speed with anthemic riffs galore and screaming lead guitar solos whipping the band into ever greater frenzies, like some 70s stadium metal band racing at top speed for their life. "Annihilate" follows, another Flag-style hammer to the face delivered with top metallic precision.
Highly recommended to fans of their albums, obviously, as well as anyone into the newer band Lecherous Gaze that some of these guys went on to form after Annihilation Time broke up, this is one of those few modern records to really capture the sort of frenzied, rockin' hardcore violence found with the likes of Eye For An Eye-era Corrosion Of Conformity, late-era Flag, and B'last!'s crushing metallic output.